Day 693: Face Characters

Sometimes, and by sometimes I mean all the time, I forget that my friends haven't been to Disney as often as I have, and therefore they don't realize the same kinds of things that I do about Disney. They don't know what Spaceship Earth is and they haven't had a dole whip and they most certainly don't know what I'm talking about when I say "Fastpass." But beyond that, there are apparently a lot of things that I just take completely for granted, such as face characters.

I wasn't actually in the room when the initial conversation happened, but it's been an ongoing thing over the past few days. Of the four of us that live n Room 309, three of us have been to Disney World, and therefore we've had just a bit of experience of it at all...or at least parts of it. But that leaves Ashley, who's never been before (and we hope to fix that in the future!). Initially, from what I've heard, she didn't realize that face characters actually act like the characters, instead they would just freeze for a picture and sign and autograph and that's about it.

Of course, we all know that there's so much more to it than just that. Face characters are an essential part of the Disney Parks. Not every character is a "Face character," and by that I mean they're portrayed by an actor, who has the ability to speak with the guest and make their own facial expressions, unlike the other characters (Mickey or Minnie for instance), who have a large head put on top of their's with no ability to talk.

So when we watched some videos of Gaston, things got a bit excited around our room. Here's the specific video that started it all though:

You sure can't beat kids when it comes to meeting characters, and a little bit of me wishes I had met more kids when I was a kid. Granted, in just a few weeks I'll be meeting as many characters as humanly possible because I WANT TO MEET THEM ALL and I have friends with me and even if Megan isn't a huge fan of characters we're going to meet Anna and Elsa anyways and it's going to be wonderful. 

And yeah, of course we'll be meeting Gaston. 

Have a magical day! 

(Note: This blog post was written on December 12 due to Finals!)

Day 388: Disney Jazz

It's honestly been a while since I've played some real jazz. Since I'm not in the jazz band here at SNC, you just don't play a lot of it otherwise (Wind Ensemble is fun but it's more classic stuff, not really the whole jazz thing...the most we got of jazz there was in Sleigh Ride). But today, as I'm sitting in the music lobby making up blog posts and doing homework in between classes, Megan texted me to tell me how awesome one of my CD's is: My Disney Jazz CD.

Now, I have a few different ones, but the one I know she's talking about (and that I'm now listening to as well), is Disney Jazz: Everybody Wants to Be a Cat. I've had it for a few years now, and listen to it on occasion (I tend to listen to Disney Parks music when doing homework of course), but I felt that I should blog on it, since I haven't actually blogged on it previous to right now.

There's tons of various songs on it, most notably Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat by Roy Hargrove. It's my personal favorite song on the CD, mostly because of the wonderful saxophone solo stuck in the middle of it, plus the fact that that song is basically the most classic Disney Jazz song of all time. But you've also got Chim Chim Cher-ee, Some Day My Prince Will Come, Find Yourself, You've Got a Friend In Me, He's a Tramp, Feed the Birds, Alice in Wonderland, The Bare Necessities, It's a Small World, Belle, Circle of Life, and my other favorite, Gaston.

Gaston, from Beauty and the Beast originally, is honestly probably the strangest song on the entire album. It's just plain WEIRD. Like parts of it make no sense whatsoever. It's just this big jumble of notes and sounds. But the funny thing is: IT WORKS. For some reason that song is so strange that it all blends together in this really weird way and it sounds AWESOME.

Other than those two I don't think I can really pick a favorite because I love them all. Disney and Jazz are both such important parts of my life that they fit together perfectly, and I really do suggest at least listening to the CD. I have Gaston tagged on below this for you to listen to, because...well...I just explained this!

Have a magical day!

(Note: This Blog Post was written on January 27, 2014).